Drug Cards Perplex Seniors

Of the 26,000 seniors who received enrollment kits for Medicare's
new drug discount cards only 400 had signed up as of May 28,
Alexandra Marks reported in the June 2 Christian Science Monitor
(csmonitor.com). Robert Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights
Center in New York, said "the nonresponse is not surprising," but is
"a combination of the complexity of the program and the meagerness of
the benefit for most people." With over 70 card options and "an
internet-based system for comparison shopping," the program does
indeed seem complex. Says Florida senior Mary Telsa "I haven't signed
up ... because I don't understand how to get enrolled." As for the
program's "meagerness," critics point out that drug price inflation
has reduced the effectiveness of the card's discounts to the point
where cheaper options will still exist in Canada and online. But, say
supporters, the program is not without its benefits. Low-income
elderly may be eligible for a $600 discount and $4.6 million has been
allotted to help more citizens take advantage of it. Several private
groups, including WebMD, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the
National Council on Aging, have pitched in to help educate seniors
about the program and how to use it in the hope that with increased
understanding will come increased participation.

TRADE POWER GRAB. Mischa Gaus, in the June 2 In These Times
(inthesetimes.com), reports on the chilling development in trade
policy represented by a proposal to include individual states in
"upcoming trade agreements which would allow foreign companies to bid
on the states purchasing and contracts." The move, Gaus writes,
"could undermine laws that reign in capitalism's worst abuses." The
plan would rob states of the ability to insist that the goods they
purchase are manufactured in accordance with environmental and human
rights standards. Or, as Chris Slevin, spokesman for Public Citizen's
Global Trade Watch, puts it: "The way a product is made and who does
it are rights states hold in purchasing laws," adding simply "they're
giving those rights away." States who sign on to Robert Zoellick's
(Bush's top trade official) plan would "give the Bush administration
blanket approval to commit them to the rules of the Central American
Free Trade Agreement ... as well as bilateral trade deals with
Australia and Morocco." State purchasing is usually exempt from the
rules of international trade agreements but under Zoellick's plan the
rules of "all trade pacts under negotiation" could be brought to bear
on it. Using the rules of certain trade agreements, big corporations
would be able to sue states for restricting their profits by
requiring them to adhere to environmental or anti-sweatshop policies,
thereby making human rights gains such as the "licensing agreements
corporations sign with universities prohibiting child labor" a thing
of the past. Once states sign on with Zoellick, signing off becomes
difficult. Extrication rules require that a state compensate all
"signatories ... for the loss of this 'benefit.'"

BISHOPS BACKLASH DIVIDES CATHOLICS. Debate continues over whether
Catholics in public office should face punishment from the church if
their views run contrary to dogma and doctrine. And, as always, it
centers on abortion, the Catholic running for highest public office,
Sen. John Kerry, and the "handful of US bishops" who would refuse him
communion and, in doing so, inflict on Kerry "the most grievous
punishment possible short of excommunication from the church." Jane
Lampman reports in the May 28 Christian Science Monitor on the real
divide among Catholic faithful, such as Terry Carden, who says "we
haven't had situations in my lifetime where people have been
identified as public sinners -- presumably we've come some distance
from the Middle Ages when they used to do that ... And it's
unbelievable that people are being [singled out] on the basis
of their political positions, not on active behaviors of their
own."

or Rev. Richard John Nehaus, who calls the bishops' action long
overdue. "It's a longstanding scandal that most of the bishops in
years past tried to finesse or evade their responsibility in calling
Catholics to account," Nehaus said. Following on the heels of St.
Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke's declaration that politicians who
support abortion rights can't receive communion, Bishop Michael
Sheridan of Colorado Springs has added that those who vote for
supporters of abortion rights, gay marriage, stem cell research or
euthanasia should also be denied the sacrament. Conspicuously absent
from Sheridan's list of issues is the death penalty, which the church
has long and vocally opposed. Some see this as evidence of political
partisanship in a right-shifting institution, but others disagree.
Among them is Nehaus, who counters "nothing else in the catalogue of
issues has anywhere near the authoritative status of the teaching on
abortion."